Q: 9/11 Where were you when it happened?

9/11 was one of those moments in history so many people will never forget. It was so shocking and so emotional that this day will always stand out in our memories. Let's remember it the way each of us experienced it, in solidarity with all Americans, and hope for the future.

I was in 7th grade; I walked into my Biology class to the TV on displaying some buildings and smoke. As everyone filed in the chatter died down as student after student realized what we were seeing--American buildings smoking. A good part of the first part of class was spent with more questions than explanations, and tears. I will never forget that day, and will never forget the feeling of solidarity we shared.

I was in the 10th grade in the middle of my first school year exams. Although I was sitting in a far off country we felt this loss worldwide. My parents kept hugging me over and over again because I had spent the summer of 2001 visiting my uncle in NY and went to see the twin towers in July 2001 and then we tried to get on a call with my brother you was a freshman at Purdue university at the time but all the calls were jammed and we couldn't get to him for hours. It was a total panic situation....as you said...we will never forget the day!

Was sitting at the computer with the news on after dropping my youngest son off at kindergarten - my first thought that was schools were going to be next and I was crying and hurrying to the door to go get my baby from school when they came on the news and told parents that the schools were being flooded with parents trying to check their kids out and NOT to come. I panicked & cried and stayed glued to the TV all day until it was time to pick him up from school... I tried hard to compose myself when he got to the car - but he could see I had been crying - he said they had a meeting in the auditorium to try to explain what had happened - but he was so young - he didn't understand or know what to think... It was a day filled with sorrow, fear and tears for me. :(

I was in my bedroom getting ready for my astrology class as a freshman in college. I ran downstairs and put my moms tv on to show her and we sat together in amazement as we along with almost everyone else watched the 2nd plane fly into the other building. It was so hard to move...I WILL NEVER FORGET!

I like this Ask & Share... it's weird to think about where everyone was or what everyone was doing at the same exact time.

I was in 5th grade. The school day just started but it wasn't time to do the Pledge of Allegiance yet so it was strange to hear the principal on the loud speaker. I didn't really know what happened but I know it got really sad and serious all of a sudden. Just prior to that, I found out my best friend's mom was having a baby in the hospital that morning. She was born shortly after the twin towers were hit :/

I was at work and got a call from my (now) ex wife. She told me an airplane had hit the 1st tower. In denial, I thought it could be an accident. The the second one hit and I knew it couldn't be. I had a class to teach shortly after. When I came back down the towers were falling. Still in denial I thought that just the top floors collapsed and the smoke cloud hid the rest of the building.

Later that night or it might have been the next day, opposition in Afghanistan mounted an offensive or the US dropped some daisy cutters (largest non nuclear bomb in the US inventory, so named for the pattern it leaves on the ground). The news on the radio said that some small mushroom clouds were seen in the Afghani desert, and it looked like the US had struck back. I remember being raw enough that I hoped we'd nuked them. It wasn't until later that I realized how politically terrible that would have been, and would have set up a slippery slope for nuke use. Kinda like letting the genie outta the bottle.

I'm a Texas conservative who doesn't like Bush at all. But man I don't envy the job that was laid out before the man that day.

I was in 8th grade period 4/5 english class. They didn't tell us what was going on, I personally found out when I got home, but there were people leaving classes so I guess parents were pulling their kids out early because of it.

I was sitting in 11th grade drama when a teacher came in, whispered in our teacher's ear, and all the blood drained out of his face. We dragged out the tv and turned it on. Someone said "oh my god, what a terrible accident" and I turned to face poor Mr Farmer and before I knew what I was saying, out of my mouth came "This... this can't have been an accident, somebody's attacking New York" and we both had to sit down... Nobody could speak for a while.
We were only a year and a half out of columbine and our own bomb scare, three in our school system alone. Because our town was the second biggest bank center on that side of the mississippi, downtown was shut down and evacuated, and our principal was so lost we gave up on class structure for the rest of the day and just milled around as teens will do. Details were given out over the intercom as they became available, including the pentagon and the one the passengers stopped, name eludes me, sorry.
Some parents came and picked kids up early, some seniors left and took whoever wanted to leave with them, mostly we all found our friends and talked about how scared we were for whoever we knew in NY, and how could this be happening?? We had just gotten through one gigantic tragedy... We were still looking at each other funny and discussing where we had been, and now this was happening...
Everyone who had a cell phone had to try to keep track of it as they were being passed around to check on parents or siblings downtown, or in NY, and we couldn't get through to NY most of the time because towers were so overloaded.

I was in Palestine when the planes hit, and it was an extremely sad moment. At first, my sisters and I didn't believe it, but when my brother said a second plane hit, we just felt so helpless. And contrary to media reports that children were dancing in the streets during that time because of the planes hitting, it was because they were being offered candy on camera to dance in the streets. And then they made it look like Palestinians were happy about the buildings going down, and people dying and that was the furthest thing from the truth. I can still see people trying to jump out of the building and it makes me tear up because no one should have to go through that.

I think I was a freshman in high school. I didn't find out until my foods class which was my first period class. A few members of the group was like OMG you don't know what happened. Kinda sad I didn't know know until then.

I saw the reports of that. And even though, I am not going to get political here. But, the stupid media did reports on that... and that was dumb on their part.
I happen to have been in Israel. Learning abroad... and I had received three text messages from the news reports about how it happened- I actually read them out of order. I remember it to this day.
I couldn't believe it! I still couldn't believe that it happened...
I left one America and returned after my studies to a completely different America.

I was working in midtown and heard it in the news. Everyone in the office stopped working and we called an emergency meeting. The financial markets were reacting to the news and as the situation got worst, everyone started leaving early to try to get home. Still remember it clearly to this day on the way to work days later and seeing the void where the towers stood and only smoke and rubble.

Rez, I'm right there with you on everything but the nukes. Not because I don't think they deserved it, but because I think fewer similar minded semi extremists would hesitate using one of those missing Soviet suitcase nukes had we done it. Make sense? I think the danger still exists, but it would be much greater had we used them.

I was in computer class in high school. I can smell the smoke from ground zero and it smelled like that for days. Really sad day. Buses were going off route, chaos all over the streets of new York. I can't bear to re-live it. It's traumatic .